I am a young struggling actor and I have just one dream- to haunt every silver screen in the world. I want to be the biggest movie star the world has ever been an audience to. For the past 3 years, I’ve lived every day like a high profile audition for my next big break- each day the tickets were sold out and each day it was a stellar performance. Today is one such day…

A rich and successful producer, Kapoor Saahab, wants me to go to the Apollo Hospital and meet his sick daughter, for two hours. If I do this, and if the sick daughter is pleased by my performance, then I will get to play the lead character in the very talented director Bhansaali Saahab’s next Romantic Sci-fi movie titled “Trisexual Quadrelateral”- where the species of man is trisexual, instead of bisexual. And all I had to do was-to pretend that I was the sick daughter’s boy friend, convincingly! Sure why not! To be the lead actor in Bhansaali ‘s next movie- I’ll be her God-damned husband for the rest of my life.

“I won’t let you do it, P” I was shouting. She was two feet away from me and I couldn’t strike her down. She had already given me commands.

“The Ship will reach Earth in a few minutes, O, don’t struggle, and I’ll give you elixir, just let go of your love… Don’t make it hard on me, please…”

I couldn’t do anything. I was helpless. What could I do? VIRUS! I couldn’t talk to her, without letting P know. And VIRUS is not good enough to stop P…

I was a loser. I was pathetic. I can’t even stop an old woman masquerading as a 16 year old girl.

“P, I can’t do anything. There is one thing that I have learnt- not to sweat over things that are not under my control…”

“Yes!”

“If you can’t beat them, join them! So I want to join you, I want that elixir…”

“O, be sure about one thing, if you play games with me, Humans will die even more miserably…”

“What game can I possibly play and win, against you?”

“I hope you do mean that… ”

“I promise!”

While she went to get me elixir, I whispered to VIRUS, “Super-Sweet-S-Style! Kill everything dear VIRUS, nothing should work after you’re done with this ship…” That S had to have such a big code-word to unleash VIRUS in attack mode! VIRUS silently entered the ship’s computer…

“Here’s your elixir, O”

I started drinking it. Yuck, it tasted like Milk

“I’m glad you are seeing the bigger picture… We have to cross the barrier because…”

“Warning!!! Total malfunction of LifePod177. Losing fuel in 3seconds, 2 seconds, 1 seconds… Unable to engage Back up fuel mechanism. Losing all power…”

“You piece of…”

“Cow dung?” I interrupted her, “We’re stranded here. Forever. You cannot signal anybody. No SOS, no, nothing. We’ll lose oxygen in few days and we’ll die, even if we have drunk elixir, without oxygen nothing can live, not even you, right? It’s an end truly Super-Sweet-S-Style!”

“Oh that VIRUS!”

“You are a really good programmer, I have to agree, few minutes with VIRUS’ code and you wrote the code that’d kill yourself, which nobody was able to do in millions of years!”

“You know, this is what makes me attracted to you… You are one dangerous dude”

She came near me. I thought she was gonna kick me, but she gave me a really amazing kiss.

“You are becoming a good kisser!” I said.

“I’m learning from the best!”

“Oh, You! Sorry P, but looks like we are going to die together… you wanna die being the world’s biggest assshole or being the world’s best kisser? I can teach you more…”

“You really are sweet, O. But I’m not going die anytime soon. I haven’t survived millions of years just like that…”

“What do you mean? The Oxygen Converter is out, there’s no power! VIRUS totally wiped out all power!”

“I know!”

“Even the Computer system is down- no navigation system, no shield is up to protect us from the sedo-beams, no nothing, everything’s down!”

“I know honey, I’m gonna bring everything up in 2 seconds…”

“How?”

“Oh I’ve been transmitting power to all the systems in this ship for a while now. Each system has an antenna that can use this Over-The-Air power that I’m transmitting and each system will start running in full working mode…”

“You are kidding me! I won’t let you…”

I ran towards and hugged her, in an attempt to block all the power she was radiating. I was an idiot as I had not considered the outcome. Huge amount of power just went through my body and I was paralyzed for a good amount of time. If it wasn’t for elixir, I would have died, then and there…

“Oh I haven’t activated all the safety commands on you, yet? Guess I should, and as a reward for your bravery, I will cut off your hands…”

She was totally serious. With her beautiful eyes, she was looking into my eyes, smiling, as she held two huge swords of lightning which came out of nowhere, and winked at me. Some kind of green fire or vapor was emanating from her entire body. She looked like she was death incarnate and I was about to die…

“I am going to enjoy this, O. You look so beautiful now. I really love your eyes when you are scared. You know what? I’ll keep this as your memory, whenever I miss you, I will remember you and see these eyes of yours and your scream… You have not yet screamed, O. Why have you not screamed? Do you not want me to enjoy this? Do you not want to end our first meeting with fun? Do you not want me to have a memorable experience of your scared eyes and your screams filled with horror? I said, Scream, O”

She lifted her swords. The terror she had invoked in me was so great that I couldn’t even scream. I was speechless and numb, my heart was pumping like there was no tomorrow and yet, there was not enough blood in me, I couldn’t see any red-color on my skin, or my palms, as I looked at my hands… probably for the last time…

Ship was whizzing through space towards Earth. I could see it from the window. Tears formed so quickly as soon as I saw that Blue-Green planet. This monster was going to kill them all and I won’t be able to do anything…

“Scream, O”

Was I worried about my hands?

“Don’t kill them, P, you are no monster, don’t kill them, take my hands if you want, but don’t kill them”

“Well I’ll consider this as begging without the commands, now, with the commands, Scream, O”

I started screaming…

She cut off both my hands from their sockets in a single clean swing. The lightning blades were enough to kill but because of elixir, I survived this too. Now I knew why she gave me the elixir, I was the one who had committed the biggest crime on Earth, so I should suffer the most. She gave me the elixir to go through all this unbearable pain and still live to suffer her sadistic torture…

I heard her laughter, that innocent laughter, the way I used to laugh, when I was a kid. It was beautiful; I wanted to hear it again.

“P, laugh again…”

She looked at me. The Spaceship had landed.

“I’m going out; I’ll destroy your satellites, all the defense labs and I’m going to give out commands. The commands will make every man a murderer and every woman and child, a victim. Each man will kill at least two victims and survive the horror, without eating any food, or water, or going for cloning or saving anybody else, they’ll just sit around, see the world filled with only men, no woman or child to be seen anywhere, and just wait to die…This is your punishment O, you can close your eyes and remember me or be a man, and see the effect of what you have caused. I will go from here once I send out the commands. You can keep this LifePod177 and your hands will grow back, as you have drunk elixir… Use the LifePod177, and you can do anything you want. Maybe you can plan to go across the barrier and find my dad and bring him back. You know this feeling of love for your dad and going to extremes to find him, right, that’s another thing that’s common between us. Or you could become powerful, I don’t know how, but you have to become powerful enough, to find me and kill me… O, can you do that?”

I was passing out…

I was no man, certainly not the man. I wasn’t even man enough to see the destruction I had caused…

I was in love with her and I wanted to die hearing her beautiful laughter. I started remembering her and I heard her laughter. And now I wanted to die.

But I just couldn’t…

E! E! I wanted to fight back. I had promised her…

Chapter 20

The Armageddon

“O! Wake up, O, wake up!”

It was E’s voice.

“I’m so glad to see you E!” Tears filled my heart. I had failed her; I had failed the whole world…

“What happened to you… Your hands…”

“Don’t worry about it… it’s a souvenir of my betrayal…”

“We were looking for you all these days and when we saw some unusual movement in space, we tracked that, it was a space-ship, it landed here and you were in there, I brought you out… But your hands…”

“I have to stop her; she’s going to kill everybody… Tell S to clear out the labs, and launch our back up Satellites from the moon for the commands…”

“What?”

“Do it, E, we don’t have time…”

E ran off with her phone. I hope I was not too late… I had to get up…

“Queen… You bitch!” I yelled in pain.

“I know, that bitch Queen is one hell of a psycho, she destroyed our satellites a few seconds ago…” This was a strange voice, actually there was no voice at all, and it was as if it was coming from within my brain, this was just a thought, which was not mine.

“Who are you?”

“Dude, it’s me, M!”

M had blocked the blood loss from my shoulder joints and covered my wound with his body.. His cloudlike body, suddenly felt like they were my two hands, only that their ends joined at point.

“How can I hear you?”

“I have connected to your neural network dude, and the elixir? Sweet!”

“You got the elixir too?”

“Yeah, is there a problem?”

“No. Yes, there is! The Queen’s going to kill everybody on Earth! And we don’t have much time!”

“What?”

“She cut off my hands with her lightning swords and she’s going to kill us all as punishment…”

“So that explains how I can connect to your neural network- because of the cut from the lightning blades, your shoulder joint has become a zone of high green energy… Your shoulder is glowing green man! You have a bit of a Queen in you; you are kinda powerful now…”

“Try, you can do it… we have been talking using these commands only, you can also move around me with same commands…”

I waved my right arm, I mean M.

He started moving. He was huge… I tried to find the end of my right M, I just couldn’t see it. I tried moving my left M. He too moved around. It felt great. I suddenly felt I was powerful…

“We should take on Queen, now, before she sends out the commands… Hey are these the commands being sent by Queen?” I could feel the commands being sent…

“It’s just like she said! Only she has sent me the command to stay awake and not pass out! That bitch! She really wanted to make me see all of it… She wanted to really torture me… We have to stop her…”

“How?”

“I don’t know…At least we must ensure E’s safety… ”

“The rockets from moon…”

“Have they launched?”

“They have jammed… I just read some responses from the rocket…”

“Even the rockets?”

“No I’m guessing some device was aboard those rockets which was capable of receiving the KO Commands…”

“Damn it!”

“I’m sensing her… She just left Earth…”

“What? She left?”

“That over confident bitch… we can win this after all… You can transmit KO Commands right?”

“Of low power and range, yes”

“Once she sends the commands, then we can give new commands…”

“Can you stretch into thin threads or small balls?”

“I can… what do you have in mind?”

“Turn yourself into infinite amounts of balls, or stretched thin threads, covering every bit of Earth and transmit these KO Commands that I have given… can you do it?”

“I think I can…”

And for those few seconds, when the world was about to plunge itself into darkness, when humanity had become a slave, out to destroy itself, and in the most chilling way possible, the whole of Earth was covered with snow-like cloudy balls, bringing with them the song of life. It was a beautiful sight; I don’t think if the Earth looked more beautiful than it was looking now, through my eyes. We had saved the planet, one more time from ourselves, the blue-green planet- called our home…

Chapter 21

Aftermath

“How does it feel now that your hands have grown back?” asked E.

“It’s OK”

“Are you still depressed?”

“What kind of a question is that E?”

“Hey, sorry! It’s just that I care about you because I love you…”

“Do you always have to use the love card, E? You make me feel guilty…”

“You’re the one who cheated, so you should suffer a little, don’t you agree?” she was smiling.

Yes I had cheated on her. And yet, here she was, with me, trying to make me feel better. But I really didn’t understand her way of making me feel better. But at least I am lucky, lucky because she understood that I had made a mistake… and I had almost paid a huge price for it.

“Stop thinking about it, damn it!” she yelled at me.

“How did I completely forget you when I was with her, just for a few seconds? How could I have sidelined the whole world? I had so many chances to do some serious harm to her, but I didn’t! Was I so madly in love with her?”

“Oh my God! O! It was not love, OK? Love is supposed to uplift you, make you feel better; it makes you a better person… make you do something great.”

“Well when I was with her, I felt uplifted, I felt really better, so that’s 2 out of 3.”

“It did not make you a better person than you already are?”

“No, it did not. In fact while I was with her, when she cut off my arms, I actually gave up… I didn’t want to save the world anymore… I just wanted to die…”

“O!” She hugged me. She was fighting her tears.

“All I want to do is think about her all the time and here her laughter…”

“You are just obsessed about her… She really was a strong woman, I mean she’s really old… Don’t you dare say that you still love her…”

“I think I love her”

“I wanna kick you in the jewels”

“I’m sorry E, but that’s just how I feel…”

“You are obsessed over her, she obviously has given you some commands, and with time you’ll get over it… I know that. You are my boy friend!”

“E, don’t you think I could tell the difference between a command and myself?”

“They’re commands that she gave you, end of discussion. You don’t always have to be this honest with me, O” I could sense she was about to cry.

I hugged her, “You are my girl friend, E. In time I’ll become my old self, I know. I just don’t know how to lie to you and tell you that I was faithful to you on that ship…”

“Then let’s not talk about this ever… OK?”

“To be fair, until I heard your voice, telling me to wake up, I had given up totally. You uplift me to do great things, E and she cuts off my arms and leaves me to watch the whole world die, I think I’m smart enough to know the difference between what you are to me and what she is…”

“Thank you, O. I love you…”

I still couldn’t say to her that I loved her. But in that ship, with P, love came in my words so easily. Should love always make a man better than he already is? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I wanted to love E and wanted to forget P. I remembered P, and heard her laughter, to see if I enjoyed her laughter. I was still charmed by her laughter and I was kinda happy again.

“How’s N’s experiments with Zombies to free them working out?” I asked S.

“Not much luck. He’s been frying the brains in the lab, O, nobody can work anymore over there”

“Why not?”

“I think if we have the gas bombs which smell like fried brains we’d win the war! The Queen would surrender immediately!”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yes”

“What else? Did you get what M was asking for?”

“The lightning gun? Are you kidding? Is there such a weapon?”

“I mean we see them in video games all the time! They must be real!”

“They’re not, OK. If M is so smart, why can’t he make that Lightning gun, to kill the Queen, himself, huh?”

“He can’t”

“Oh he can’t huh? We are running out of options here, O, at least we have got to release S233 to the people” S was getting desperate.

“I told you S, we can’t do that. M says that if a space tourist or hitchhiker chances upon S233, there’s going to be chaos here and the Queenians would undoubtedly wipe us out!”

“What are we going to do, O? Each day we are risking getting discovered. And if the Queenians find what’s going on here, we …”

“I know, S, I know!”

“I think I can help you out!” said a beautiful, probably 15-16 year old girl.

She was wearing the dreaded Queenian uniform which we saw in Rock’s memories.

“You’re a Queenian!” I gasped. My heart forgot how to beat for a few seconds. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t get over the fact about how weird her eyes were, and yet somehow captivating.

“I’m amazed at how much you know! I have been observing you for the past two three days, and you have really impressed me!”

I had to step up my game. Lives depended on what I’d do in the next few minutes.

“Shall we go somewhere more secluded? This lab is a bit over crowded” she said.

“Yes. Where?”

“Your bedroom.”

“OK”. I was sweating.

I drove her to my house. She just kept looking at one thing while I drove- me. We went into my bedroom; I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent.

“Have you seen a parrot made of red crystal?”

“No…”

“You know who I am?”

“You’re a Queenian”

“Why do you think that I’m a Queenian?”

“Your uniform.”

“What else?”

“I tried to punch you, I couldn’t”

“So you wanted to hit me?”

“No, no. I wanted to confirm if you were a Queenian.”

“What if I wasn’t and you actually hit me?”

“I’d have stopped just before I would actually make contact.”

“You’re confident about that?”

“Yes”

“Why does that girl E find you attractive?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, before she loved you, she must have found you attractive in some way. What did she like about you?”

“I, umm, I don’t know…”

“You wouldn’t tell me even if the fate of this world depended on it?”

“I know. I know why she liked me…”

“Then please, tell me”

“She said I acted like an idiot the first few seconds I saw her, then after a while…”

“Yes, after a while?”

“After a while, she noticed my eyes…”

“You know that she’s right? You are not attractive at all, but your eyes, they are such a mystery… they seem to have some romance, a burning passion, I don’t know what it is, but it is there… what else did she say about your eyes?”

“Huh, umm, my eyes… when I was blowing a big balloon and when she could only see my eyes at one point, she said, I looked like her prince charming of her dreams…”

“Ouch, that was a bad thing to say about your boy friend, and to his face, no less! That was harsh…”

“She can be brutally honest sometimes…” I was sweating like I was in some oven.

“Is she honest all the time with you?”

“I don’t know, I think so…”

“Does she love you?”

“Yes”

“And you?”

“Ya, I love me too” I smiled.

She started laughing like, like I used to laugh as a kid, free and wild and innocent I never heard laughter like that.

“You are funny, I had totally forgotten about that. I’ve been watching you, and you are funny. Why did you take this much time to be funny with me?”

“I mean, I was scared…”

“You are scared of a girl who’s in your bedroom?”

“A beautiful girl…” I corrected her.

“You think I’m pretty?”

“Even though you are a Queenian I haven’t been able to ignore the fact that you are really pretty…”

“And you wanted to punch me?”

“But I’d have stopped”

“You’re free to punch me now…”

“What?”

“I said you’re free to punch me now…”

“You didn’t deactivate any beam; you didn’t send any command…”

“Don’t you believe me? Punch me and prove that you could stop, just before contact…”

“OK.” I lifted my arm. I sensed no blocking if I lifted my arm towards her. She had deactivated the command. I could do anything now, I could punch her, I mean, real hard, knock her out, I could even kill her now. And nobody would know… if there’s no Queenian to go back to the Queen and quack, the queen would never know… And Earth won’t be in any danger, at least for some more time.

But her eyes. They were so freaky, so weird. But there was something magical about them… Her lips seemed so soft… I wanted to kiss her…

I bent my head towards her, poised to kiss.

“You bad boy!” she pushed me.

“I stopped at the last minute…” I found myself smiling naughtily.

“You were not! You were going to kiss me!”

“No, no. I said I’d stop and I stopped, I mean, did the kiss take place?”

“It didn’t happen because I pushed you”

“Well I have news for you, I was about to stop…”

“Oh really? You liar!”

I was laughing. She was laughing too. And I realized I loved flirting with her!

“Do you want to do something crazy?” she asked.

“Yes” I couldn’t say no to her!

“Hey what’s your name?” I asked.

“Umm, you have S, M, N, you’re O, then you can call me, umm, P”

“P!”

“I’m glad you tried to kiss me…” she said while leading me out of my house.

“I’m glad too…”

Chapter 17

Ha-P Days

“Where are we going?” I asked her. Space ship had been flying for a few minutes now.

“I don’t know”

“How far can you go on this thing?”

“You’ll be surprised!”

“Can you go far from everything? From reality?”

“I like that thought! I think we can go far from everything!” she was giggling again.

“Well that’s a romantic thing to say to a girl!” she was laughing again.

“Romantic? You want me to be romantic?”

“Yes, don’t you?”

“I want to be sexy!”

She laughed again. I was getting addicted to her laughter. I mean, what was with her laugh? I just went back to being a kid… when I was happy. When Priya was normal, when dad was not shining and mom was alive… I remember laughing like that… this girl was laughing like I used to, I wanted to hear that laughter again and again… I wanted to make her laugh again and again. It was as if my entire soul was laughing, not that I believe in soul…

“You are sexy” she said.

“I am? You said I was not attractive at all, except for my eyes!”

“Yes your eyes are very sexy!”

“We’re not under the influence of some drugs right? I mean I feel a little, whoo-ho-hooo”

“No, it’s all our eyes. Your eyes are sexy and my eyes are weird…”

“Your eyes are magical, they’re weird, but they’re more magical, I just want to keep looking at them…”

“Then look at them…”

“I am! Have you read Kalidasa?”

“No, is he a poet?”

“Yes”

“Are you going to tell me a poem?”

“No!”

“Meany…”

“You know what he said about Shakunthala?”

“No”

“Her eyes were so pretty, so alive, like a flower, that a bee, you know what a bee is right? That a bee mistakes her eyes to be beautiful flowers…”

“Ew! I hate bees”

“What? It was so beautiful, what he said, was so beautiful…”

“What is beautiful really?”

“You”

“I’m beginning to agree that you are on drugs!” she started laughing again.

“Don’t stop. Keep laughing…”

“What?”

“Your laughter is so, so calming. It makes me happy…”

“Does it now?”

“Yes, your laughter is… it is…”

“It is what?”

“I don’t know, I’m not good with words. It makes me forget everything; makes everything else unreal, boring, It makes me happy, just to be with you, P”

“Whenever you want to hear my laughter, just think of me, and my laughter you will hear, I’ve made it so…”

“Also make me remember your face, your eyes…”

“Alright, you junkie…Now close your eyes… what are you thinking about?”

“You”

“Good! Can you hear my laughter and see me laughing?”

With my mind’s eyes I could see and hear her so clearly, it was magic or something…

“Yes, hey can I still punch you?”

“You want to punch me?”

“Yes”

“Then you can punch me, it should be a really wet punch OK?”

I kissed her. I caught her lips while she was saying “OK”

I don’t remember how long we kissed or how often I kissed her, but E, if you are reading this, I’m sorry. I loved you with all my heart, but with P, it’s different, I’m different. I just can’t say it in words, I just can’t. It’s not only you that I have cheated; I had made a promise to the world that I’ll do my best to protect it. But I was not thinking about that promise then, if I was, I would have killed P when I got the first chance. But I didn’t. I was a slave to this Queenian. I don’t know what KO commands she had used on me… I’m sorry, E and I’m sorry world… Please find it in your hearts to forgive my selfishness because the days that I spent on her space ship were one of my happiest…

“Do you want to dance?” she asked.

“Yes!”

“Dance of lights?”

“I don’t know that one…”

“It’s easy. Switch off all lights, all machines, all computers of the ship, take out something that glows in the dark and dance!”

“It sounds romantic… did you make this up?”

“Totally! Just now, in fact!” she giggled as she switched off everything and took out something, that glowed in a million colors like a butterfly. Each time the wings of the butterfly flapped, the size of the butterfly would change. I could see in the light, her eyes… And they looked so divine, so full of life. Her slow rhythmic steps and slowly her eyes started dancing too… it was the most beautiful thing I had seen in my life.

I took out my mobile and made it glow and slowly tried to copy her moves.

“You’re really good at the Dance of Lights!”

“Oh I learnt from the girl who invented that dance!”

She laughed again. And I closed my eyes and remembered her, I could see her laughing face, but it was nearly not good enough, it was an entirely divine feeling- to see her in person, alive, right next to me, smelling her hair and breathing the same air, so close, so close while our bodies danced to the rhythm of love, I craved for her kiss- she was teasing me- denying the kiss. The game went on till I couldn’t take it anymore and held her shoulders so firmly and kissed her so violently, that I was hurting her, I was getting hurt, and she was hurting me and as if in all this pain laid our salvation… We were free, really free…

“VIRUS, P is a friend! Why did you try to hack into her Space Ship?” I asked VIRUS.

“O, this is an alien Space ship, I couldn’t resist it, and I had to know everything about it! Look at all this hardware!”

“That’s OK, O. SO this is your software?” asked P.

“Yes. This basically is malicious software intended to do maximum damage and collect maximum data from the hostiles”

“But why did it get caught? This ship is a basic Queeninan LifePod177. This doesn’t boast of advanced protection… Your software really sucks if it can get caught by this ship. You have the source code for VIRUS?”

“Yes. VIRUS load it onto screen”

We could see the code on the screen. It was a messy code, written over 3 years by S and me. There were no comments, the logic was not straightforward. It was a programmer’s nightmare, basically.

“I see the problem. You are not registering or certifying at the hardware level. You see, in our ships, most of the OS routines are done at the hardware level itself, so even if switch-off, it only means the ship has gone in power-save mode, and the OS and all security and health monitoring mechanisms are still active. Wait I’ll change the coding here… like this…”

She started typing rapidly. I tried to follow her logic, the algorithm she was using to hack into her own ship. I followed for a while and then it became Greek to me. Maybe when I’m back in home with S, I’ll understand a bit better…

“Done!” she said.

“You know that I could potentially use VIRUS against the Queenians?”

“I want you to! It’s been boring, no worthy opponent. It’s no fun at all being the most powerful and don’t get to use your power at all…”

“Oh… Right. I can’t believe that you are a programmer too!”

“I am! There are a lot of other common things between us, O”

“Like what?”

“Well, you are a dictator…”

“No way, you are a dictator too?”

“Yes”

“Which planet?”

“It’s not a planet…”

“A satellite?”

“No. not that either…”

“A galaxy!?”

“No…”

I looked at her for the longest time. She couldn’t be, she really couldn’t be her…

“Uni… Universe?”

She nodded her head.

“You’re the Queen?”

“Don’t I look like a Queen?”

“You look like a Princess!”

“That’s why I told you that I was P”

“But you are Q”

“Yes I am…Are you mad at me for hiding my identity?”

“No, no. if you had told me I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have… kissed you…”

“Really?”

“I don’t know… Perhaps I would have, I’m so madly in love with you”

“You love me?”

“I don’t know, I’m confused… Oh God what’s going on!”

“Confused? Why? You were the one who tried to kiss me first! And now you are confused? Is the cause for your confusion E?”

“No, no. Oh my God, I totally forgot about her!”

“That’s good. Good answer O.” she was giggling again.

“I have been kissing the Queen… You are supposed to be the villain…”

“Villain?”

“Yes. If you found out that I used your KO commands to rule the world, you are supposed to annihilate us!”

“You forgot to mention about S233”

“You know about that too?”

“I know everything about you… about what all you have done and frankly speaking I’m really excited!”

“Excited? Aren’t you worried about S233?”

“Worried? No! Let me show you, eat one S233…”

The bottle I always carried, she probably knew about that too. I ate one S233.

“Three minutes.” I said

“I know…now beg me to make E really fat, I mean really fat…”

“Please Queen, I beg you to make E very fat!” I said it, even though I didn’t want to say it!

“Done, she’s fat now!”

“No, revert it back! Revert it back!”

“Why do you care? You love me remember, and love is an exclusive activity remember?”

“She’s my friend! I don’t want her to be fat!”

“You mean to say you don’t like people who are fat?”

“I didn’t mean that. She’s very figure conscience, she’ll come crying to me when I get home and I still have to break up with her, because of you know… she’ll think that I’m breaking up with her because she became fat…”

“You know you are very interesting… After you break up with her, what will you do?”

“Umm, ask you out on a date… ” I was blushing. God knows why I was blushing, I had already kissed her, several times!

“What will you do if I refuse?”

“I’ll make a Victory symbol, V, with my fingers, point that V to your eyes and then make your eyes look at mine… I know you’ll say yes to my eyes…”

“Let’s say, I somehow resist that great temptation, and say, no, again?”

“Yes, it is. E’s grandma will be thrilled to hear about this… But age is just a number for love…”

“Love? You might be in love with me… and I, on the other hand, don’t really know what love means…”

“What?”

“I have to consider my career as a Queen”

“But you are the Queen of the whole Universe! You can do anything!”

“Yes, I was just messing with you with the career thing”

“Tell me the truth, P”

“OK, OK. Considering all the horrible things I’m about to do to you, the least I can do is being honest with you… You are not macho enough; I need a man who can take care of me… I need security”

“P! You are the Queen of the whole Universe, for God sake. You are the most powerful person in this Universe…”

“Not powerful enough to cross the barrier…”

“What?”

“You know the barrier? In Rock’s memories? The King and Deltamite were talking about it?”

“How do you know about Rock?”

“I saw all your memories when you were sleeping…”

“You looked into my memories?”

“Yes, I probably know you better than you know yourself…So I’m going to do what’s best for me, for you and the whole world…”

“You will do what’s best for everybody?”

“Yes, I will give you elixir, you have to drink it, so that you’ll survive long enough to date me for a while…”

“Oh, that sounds interesting….”

“I’ll make you powerful enough to go through the barrier…”

“Less interesting…”

“You will go there, and find out what I want you to find out”

“What is this Barrier?”

“It’s something my dad, the former King, who you saw in Rock’s memories, was obsessed with, and crossed over it.”

“Former King?”

“Well we haven’t heard from him in a long time…”

“He crossed the Barrier and no one has heard from him?”

“No.”

“And he was powerful like you?”

“No. He was a brave Queenian, but he wasn’t as powerful as me…”

“Was there anybody in past or anybody in the present as powerful as you?”

“No”

“Are you God?”

“I told you, I have a dad!”

“Oh”

“If you can cross the barrier, find my dad and bring him back to me, I’ll definitely consider dating you.”

“If I do all that, you’ll just consider dating me?”

“I mean, when a man goes through difficult times he changes right? If you can remain the way you are now, I’ll date you, I promise”

“You know I don’t trust that promise. You are a fellow dictator after all!”

“So are you going across the barrier?”

“Will you be controlling me if I go across the barrier?”

“Controlling across barrier is slow because the data rate of KO commands is very less across the barrier. You’ll have to fend for yourself…”

“And why would I agree to do something that even your dad couldn’t do?”

“To date me”

“Oh… which you will consider later…”

“You’re finally getting the big picture… So you want the elixir?”

“Yes, I guess…”

“Oh, but you have to make the ultimate sacrifice to get this elixir…”

“Is the elixir in this ship?”

“Yes”

“You can just give me the bottle?”

“Yes”

“Then why the hell should I sacrifice?!”

“I mean, they’re the rules!”

“You’re making this sacrifice thing up to get something from me?”

“Maybe”

“What should I sacrifice? Do I love the thing I have to sacrifice?”

“I guess that is why they call it sacrifice”

“What is it?”

“You have to let go of Earth”

“What? Like leave it?”

“Not exactly. I’m going to kill, like everybody, on the planet mercilessly, and you have to let go of your love of your planet and its people, you know. I mean it’s no use feeling miserable and getting depressed about some dead people right? I mean, when compared to being strong enough to cross the barrier, bring my dad back and date me!”

“You’re joking right?”

“No, I’m not joking”

“Have you gone mad?”

“No, I have not. And I don’t think I like your tone!”

“You are going to kill all humans and I should just watch my tone? To make it more likeable? To you?!”

“As usual you are over-reacting…”

“Boy have I heard that line before. Look P, I am not over-reacting! It’s you who are over-reacting? I mean why to kill everybody on Earth? For what reason?”

“For your sacrifice. For elixir. Remember?”

“You said you were making the sacrifice thing up!”

“Did I now? So you want the truth?”

“I want to know why, now!”

“For some paper work, some beaurocratic reasons”

“What?”

“Listen O, you guys are not the first species to find a drug similar to S233, OK? Even though a drug like S233 is no hindrance for me, but it’s a hindrance to normal Queenians who rely on machines to send KO commands and get responses. So to discourage any further research in the direction of S233 by the same species or other species we just wipe out the whole species who had committed the crime to eat S233 or research it further… The wiping out of the species also serves as a warning to other species who might consider researching on the lines of S233… You get it?”

“But we did not know! If I had known this before, I wouldn’t have started research on this at all! It’s my fault, I am the one who misused these commands, and I was the one who ordered the projects which resulted in S233, I should be punished, not Earth!”

“Your planet’s growth was irregular compared to other planets. You did not find out about aliens, who frequently visited, in fact, or about the United Space Committee (USC), but you found out that somebody is controlling you and you guys took action to free yourselves. The discovery of the KO commands by you guys maybe unfortunate, but rules are rules… Humans have to die… But you are special, O! You may not be special for Universe or USC, but you are special to me and I’m going to keep you alive. Sure, you’ll be mad at me for killing your loved ones, but you’ll come around in a few hundred years when you get lonely…”

“My foolish mistake has caused everybody on Earth their lives, I have single handedly killed my species, I mean, who could have predicted that this is how all humans would go…”

“Good Evening viewers and welcome to Pavithra’s Tonight Show,” announced Pavithra, “Tonight’s guests are one of my two favorites who have contradictory views about the welfare of the world. To my immediate right is the accomplished Mr. Dictator of the world, O, himself…”

There was a small applause and a strong loud booing from the audience. Leave it to Pavithra to handpick the audience!

“And to my far right, is Miss Genie Parker all the way from Ohio. Genie is one of the most widely read thinkers of our times and vehemently opposed to the dictatorship of O!”

There was a loud cheer.

“Since O is a very busy person, I’m not gonna moderate this talk and give Genie complete freedom to do her stuff…” said Pavithra.

“Hello O!” Genie said. She’s a blonde tall woman in her late twenties and apparently had done a lot of facial surgery to look good or something for the show. She was wearing Sun glasses inside the studio.

“Hi Genie!” I said.

“Looks like you have been doing a decent job so far… two months into the dictatorship. You must be very proud!”

Trick Question. E had prepared me for her.

“It’s not something to be proud of, Genie, but yes, at least we have avoided the war completely. With the “Bill of Communication Signals Pollution and Control” and “the Bill of International Communications Space Centre” signed among other important treaties, the reasons for war are more or less taken care of…”

“Are you really that naive, O?”

“Excuse me?”

“After you, and we all agree, that there will be a day after you, many or all of these bills will be nullified as being signed under your control and all the good work that had been done by the UN till about two months ago will be wasted and after you, while most nations will be taking their time to recover, some of the war hungry nations will act in top gear to get things done their way. It’s something even a child like you can understand, right?”

“Well…”

“Even if some of the war hungry nations have changed their minds about being war mongering but the rest of the world won’t be knowing who’s on whose side and it will lead to fear… and fear of the worst is the most chaotic situation one can live in. The fear of the worst, its probability of occurrence has always been the top cause of war after money laundering, you are aware of that right? You are creating a situation which will be much worse than if the actual war had taken place, do you realize that?”

“Of course I …”

“Are you aware of the fact that after you, the economy will plummet before it can do anything? The fear of worst will make people do stupid things globally and unprecedented amounts of inflation and stock market crash will happen leading to worldwide crisis which the nations will take decades to recover from? The society will be suddenly so poor and so helpless it will lead to creation of disharmony and turning an average Joe into a criminal, Just to feed his family…”

“Are you asking me questions or are you trying to scare me? You are doing neither, Genie! You are plain scaring the people. What you say is a worst case scenario which will only take place if the safety measures we have taken will fail. Revolutionary ideas like the insurance of all the Markets and The status quo of Industries ensuring job guarantees for over a year even after I have gone will be sufficient to hold the society and economy together… Unlike you, many people are actually trying their best to make world a better place and have given and implemented some of the most amazing ideas, which otherwise in a world of mistrust wouldn’t be possible.”

“What revolutionary ideas are you talking about? All these ideas have been known for a long time but were never implemented because if you implemented them on people then the people are as good as slaves- and a government which treats the people as slaves, doesn’t last long…”

I said- “The fear of being toppled by the people is what prevented the governments from doing the greater good. These governments which you speak of, cared only about two things- how to get hold of power and how to stay in power longer. Even if there were a few good men, with power, they feared the worst and did only those things which were generally considered good and did not take the tougher road of being hard. There are a very few exceptions to this rule like Abraham Lincoln. Some of the people who spend millions on a dinner party, re-doing everything in a great royal mansion, grand weddings and funerals, and birthday parties, expensive luxurious lifestyle involving insanely costly wardrobe, beauty enhancements and God knows what not, while their less fortunate homeless brethren die of hunger. Do these people have no shame? I am not asking these people to stop living or sacrifice their daily food. I am taking, only the extra money which they have hidden in some Swiss banks, their garages, their sofas, as a loan from them. Instead of the money rotting in some hidden box, I’ll invest in something that’ll lead to getting schools and hospitals and homes for the people who need them.”

“What you are taking away from people, thinking it is extra money which anyhow was rotting in some bank box- is these people’s dreams. I know it sounds stupid, but just think about it. All these people who have worked hard all their lives, to become a movie star or a sports personality or a CEO of a great company, or even saving a dollar a day for all their lives- have done so much hard work, have gone against the whole hungry world, which is ready to claw at your little joys and parade you in the funeral of your massacred dreams, these people have done what most people were unable to do and get fame or glory, or the pleasure in doing the improbable thing and money. Money is what they have, that they can show the world and tell that what they have done is special- what others couldn’t do. It is their lifeline and you are taking it away from them, you are taking away their dreams…”

“It is a difference of opinion, Genie. For you these dreams are important and for me- these dreams are expendable as long as it means it helps meet a family’s dreams of good food, job and education. You know I have seen child laborers working in unhealthy environment for the sake of a few rupees and nobody does anything about it, even though there are laws against child labor and there are laws for free education for children. What i am doing is enforcing these basic laws, safeguarding the basic rights of any human…”

“What you are doing is building a world which is perfect on the outside and rotten on the inside…”

“I guess i can’t convince you into seeing my point of view and changing your point of view and you can’t do the same thing for me. But before I finish, I also want to say that because I’ll be enforcing laws, already laid out, the desired effects of these laws can be seen now, as now, people can’t cheat. Like tax filing. SO many people evade taxes, and have done so in the past and they’ll keep doing it. But just think about all the money that will come when all the people pay their taxes honestly to the governments. Think how much good can be done with that money without any corruption. I wouldn’t have to resort to the so called stealing from the rich to feed the poor. Also the upper limit to a person’s total wealth- how much money would a person really need? Based on studies this limit has been kept. Once the limit is reached, the person will voluntarily donate the money to any charity institution he or she wishes to…”

“You think you are Robin Hood! You are nothing but a socialist, and we all know socialism has failed… it leads to totalitarian rules and people prosper economically but in all other aspects of life, they are nothing but slaves. This is what you are doing to world, right now.”

“I’m no socialist or communist. Of course, theoretically Marxism looks great but practically we can’t really implement it without gross human right violations. There never has been a true socialist or communist government or even a party, for that matter. Even with the powers I have I cant implement Marxism to its true intentions- for a better classless world. A world with no classes like rich or poor, ruler or subjects, it just can’t be done ideally. But I do accept a few of my laws seem socialist but I am just trying to take best out of socialism, communism, capitalism and globalization and other philosophies and I’m implementing them to the best of my capabilities; it will make world a better and prosperous place”

“When everybody is employed and have a decent lifestyle then the whole earth would be rapidly consuming its limited resources and leading to quicker end of the world than it was supposed to…”

“What? Are you crazy? No matter what I do, is wrong, isn’t it? Is it because I am a dictator?”

“Yes!”

“What is it that I am doing wrong?”

“You are building too many castles in air, O, and you must go, before you do more damage…” as she said this, she tried to jump on me with an automatic gun in her hand and aimed the gun at my head and pulled the trigger- or rather tried to.

I was scared, really scared, like the day dad tried to kill me. And i knew i was gonna die…

The commands had protected me.

“How? How did you give me commands? The whole of my exoskeleton is dead, including skin, eyes, tongue, ears, nose… everything is dead, and yet you managed to give me commands in such small reaction time and, and my dead skin listened to them? Why?” she was crying hysterically.

I didn’t realize that she wanted me to be dead- this desperately. She had killed off her whole exoskeleton. She could never again see or taste or feel or smell, even talk. She was using nano gadgets to listen and talk and somebody was helping her remotely via wireless devices.

Genie Parker had sacrificed all her natural 5 senses, because of me. I could never forgive myself for what had happened. Pavithra seemed to cry, and yet managed to look at me in that disgusting way that twisted my soul into a million knots…

I am an asshole, an unforgiveable asshole.

At least I had to tell Genie why she had failed to kill me, I felt I owed her that much. The first attempt on my life had failed and I didn’t want any more stupid attempts like these… I had to be strong and maybe even inspirational.

Actually, when I think about it now, I was an jackass full of myself.

“Genie, I didn’t give you any fresh commands to prevent you from killing me. You are already exposed to my commands long back, and those commands are stored in your brain like a program. You can’t erase them without risking your own sanity. It is just there forever. And when you tried to kill me that program got activated and prevented you from killing me… I’m sorry Genie; your colossal sacrifice has gone to waste…” I said softly and earnestly, “People listen to me, please do not, I mean, never, try a stupid plan like Genie’s to kill me. I realize now that I should have shared all information about these commands with you…”

Then I said something, to the whole world, that I shouldn’t have. Like all my previous mistakes, this mistake too led to that unholy Doom’s Day.

“I am going to share every byte of information I have about these commands. I want you to fight against me. And when you fight against me you will become men worthy of the highest respect, like Genie here, you shall be decorated, cherished, loved and remembered as heroes, and when you fight against me, I want you to remember that you are fighting for freedom, you are fighting for humanity and you are fighting for me!”

As I said, I was full of myself and I could totally tell what Pavithra was feeling- she wanted to slap me.

I heard Genie laugh hysterically.

“You know, O, nobody needs to fight against you to fight for you anymore, you jackass, because we are all going to die in a few seconds… The Scorpion will blow this studio to hell…”

She was wrong. The studio did not blow in a few seconds. It blew the instant she said it…

There were loud explosions being heard everywhere and I saw Pavithra run towards me. Everything was getting chaotic and I thought maybe Pavithra was about to help me. As usual, I was wrong.

She ran past me with an intense look in her eyes. It was really weird that I could totally tell that she wanted to kick me and leave me to die here. While I was absorbed in my own great observations on Pavithra’s behavior, a very heavy studio light fell from above on me and I began feel dizzy. As I passed out I thought I saw the roof collapsing on me…

Chapter 14:

Saviors

i woke up in a hospital with a sharp ache in my head. My body felt very different, my whole body felt as if it was rejuvenated or something- except I couldn’t feel my left arm. I lifted my left arm.

My left arm was gone from the elbow! I couldn’t see it. The arm was covered in bandages and i was sure that my left arm was gone. I was panicking, shouting- “Where’s my left arm- where is it… what happened!”

I started crying, “E! Where are you? E!”

After crying for a while I got exhausted and fell asleep.

When I woke up I was in my room in my house. I raised my left arm. It was there. Oh thank God it was there! I counted all my fingers, bent them in weird angles, pinched my arm and I could feel it. It was real.

The TV was on and funnily enough they were announcing my death in the TV studio, along with the deaths of Pavithra, Genie and everybody else in the studio. I was wondering if Genie was alive. I was hoping that she somehow escaped death like me.

I was wrong again. Months later I found out that she really did die in that studio along with everybody else except me.

After I saw the report I had to call E and S. Those guys must have been devastated. I called E first.

I could see that she was in her room, her eyes red from crying all night, perhaps and she had a surprised look. I guess she was looking at my face in the mobile screen.

That happy crooked crescent of a smile on her face came so fast and her high frequency “O”- thankfully the mobile transmits only safe levels of frequencies and energy. Otherwise that high frequency high energy voice of hers would have deafened me if I was there in person.

“O! Are you all right?”

“Yeah, apparently”

“You’re in your room? I’m coming straight away…”

Soon E and S joined me in my room. I had to ask them about how I survived the blasts in studio and how I ended up here in my room. I also told about the arm and the hospital.

“Dude, we were hoping you would tell us about how you miraculously escaped from that studio! You really don’t know anything?” asked S.

“Nope. So if u guys didn’t save me, and the media is reporting my death, so obviously the fire-brigade didn’t save me, then who did?”

“Dude you sure you’re not a ghost?”, S was kidding, “I’m just happy to see you alive, dude, who cares who saved you, the important thing is you are alive and we have got to find the guys who tried to kill you!”

“The Scorpion, Genie said…”

“But how can Scorpion blow the studio? The commands should have prevented him…”

“Maybe he never was exposed to commands- so that’s why he’s free to do whatever he wants…”

“How can he be not exposed to commands? We sent the commands globally- even now the commands are being sent out, how can he escape a truly global phenomena- is he not on Earth?”

“He may still be on Earth and blow the studio up… if he’s always been in very remote area like a deep cave or underground at least from the time we sent out the commands, he wouldn’t be exposed to the commands. he can always access TV, internet etc through wires or wireless even- but commands need a direct line of sight from the satellite- these command signals do not easily reflect and travel properly like light or radio waves. They get highly attenuated.”

“So we have to send out the commands through other means as well, apart from the satellite in such regions?”

“It’d be tough considering the world is a huge place… too many resources will be wasted to catch a few people. It’s not acceptable.”

“So what should we do?”

“First I should go public about the fact that I’m alive- otherwise there’ll be panic and all the good work that we have done will be wasted…”

“But what next?”

“We lay bait for the Scorpion…”

“I wanna know about your Saviors as well O,” added E, “they might know about the Scorpion. Otherwise how else they could’ve saved you in time? Maybe they have saved more people… too many unanswered questions are there…”

“I agree. We have to track down my Saviors,” I said, “Some surveillance tape on the studio, nearby buildings, traffic monitor centre; somebody should have picked up something…”

“I checked yesterday… there’s nothing O, I’m sorry…”

“Hey what if this Scorpio and your Saviors are the same? He might be playing some game to get into your good books…”

“Maybe, E, but I doubt it. Genie really tried to kill me and when she failed, Scorpio blew up the studio which was his last resort. He really did his best to kill me…”

“Maybe he knew Genie would fail?”

“Maybe… but nobody knows about the commands more than me, or S, or Doc or”

“Or your dad?”

“Dad?”

“He could’ve found out that you were playing with the commands and went underground after your dinner party fiasco? Maybe he was planning from then…”

“But we were id’ing him. We had id’ied everybody in the planet before the party!”

“Maybe he’s been underground for a long time!”

“We need more data, we just can’t keep speculating like this…” said E.

“Dad!”

Chapter 15:

The Himalayan Bermuda Triangle

The satellite images and the deployed spy robot did not give much information about the Himalayan Bermuda Triangle(HBT). It sent us some videos of snow, nothing more. After a while, the robots, just, seemed to die over there. Any electronic device may not work for long in the HBT was the opinion of S.

So after a long discussion, I, S and a few members of the team decided to go ourselves and see what’s there in HBT. We were hoping it to be the First Contact with the aliens.

There was excitement in some of us like S and a bit of fear, from E and I was a bit worried about the unknown. If aliens are there in the HBT, then these aliens had taken extreme measures to stay hidden from humans and we were invading their privacy, which they might not appreciate much. Also these aliens, probably are the ones who have designed and implemented the commands on us- so they are, it was a gut feeling, hostile towards the species I love, homo sapiens.

We were flying in a space shuttle way above the Bermuda triangle of the Himalayas (HBT), only that it was of much smaller area and it was circular in shape.

It was my first time in the Space Shuttle, so I was rather excited. But soon my whole body started to cramp due to lack of free space to move around in the shuttle. It was ironic that we were in space, and actually had no space to free our arms a bit.

And we had to jump from a stupendous height to get inside the otherwise impregnable HBT. S had got this idea and had done some initial testing of the idea and said those would work.

And when I jumped, in that freezing air and all the hot friction, the body had started to complain like it never did before. it was becoming difficult to breathe and even, to think. i was wondering if I could launch a parachute when required.

Luckily for me the automated GPS guided system parachute bag automatically guided us to the desired location and launched the parachute at the correct time. It also had a great cloaking system and making it impossible for any sophisticated camera to detect that people were falling from sky. Dad had built this parachute bag and clothes. It felt great wearing it and the comfort and security it promised was as if I was in the arms of my dad.

First, the few robots which were parachuted earlier hit the ground. Soon they conked out. When I hit the ground, I was quite far from where S had hit the ground.

I was experiencing the thrill of a lifetime. My heart was pumping like an auto-rickshaw’s horn blowing loudly in a jam-packed narrow Bangalore road.

I dropped the parachute bag and activated the cloak mode on my suit. I basically was a ghost roaming around in the alien den. This kind of made me go back to my kiddy games I used to play. I was going to kill some badass aliens today!

I calmed down and looked around. I was here for answers and not alien blood. But little did I know that destiny had different plans.

I couldn’t see any sign of life except my wildly pumping heart in that area which felt like a scary graveyard. There was nothing to be scared about- except the ghastly silence- the total absence of any life.

It’s my dad’s saying- do not swim in very calm waters. If it’s very quiet and everything’s probably dead, then there must be dangerous reason for this. This was an extremely quite lake of snow.

I walked around more. Soon I felt like I was walking in a great white temple. My heart had calmed so much, so quickly it was kind of amazing. First the adrenaline then panic, and now as if I had entered nirvana- my state of mind was changing like seasons in a year. And I was happy- genuinely happy. And all of a sudden guilt hit me- as if I was walking in a holy temple with shoes- the zombies that S insisted for our safety, suddenly seemed to be my source of unbearable guilt. my salvation, my moksha had suddenly vanished from my view- one second ago, it was right in front of me, and the next it was gone. I had committed a crime- a sin. Now I was doomed forever.

I was going crazy. The environment seemed to be having an intense influence on me.

“S, can you hear me? Can u view the feedback from my camera?” I asked S through the comtran.

“Loud and clear- do you see mine?”

“Yes- The view looks the same as mine,” I said, “You feel weird? Are you feeling extreme mood swings?”

“Yep- wonder what the zombies are feeling…”

“It was a bad idea to bring the zombies along dude”

“Why?”

“Just a gut feeling- those zombies are not exactly doves, right? They’re the symbol of our violent intentions, but…”

Before I could finish that sentence I was knocked out. Damn it! I seemed to be out of action again. Just when it mattered for me to stick around, I seemed to get knocked out… Same thing happened during the studio and same thing happened during the Doom’s Day…

When I came to my senses, I was in the same hospital I last was, when I got hit in the studio. It was so comforting and felt so out of world.

S entered the room, “How are you feeling Snow white?”

I did not enjoy the bad joke.

“What happened? We’re in alien settlement right?”

“Yep”

“And?”

“We killed all four of them…”

“What? Why! Dude these guys seem to be the guys who saved me from the studio…”

“I saw you get knocked over the comtran and they were shooting the zombies with some command gun…”

“They have command guns?”

“Yep, detected them sending commands- KO+FREEZE!”

“And the commands obviously didn’t work on Zombies cause we filled their complete brains with commands, so they couldn’t process any more new commands… the doc did good!”

“And the Zombies just went nuts, something wrong with the defense commands we gave them… they killed the aliens and then they started shooting among themselves and started shooting at me! It was real fun out there today!”

“You killed all of the Zombies alone? By yourself?”

“Well, some zombies killed other zombies and all, but basically I managed to kill the surviving few…”

“Up there Bro!” i high-fived him.

“So what shall we do now?”

“Look around for information… we have drawn first blood, we should expect some retaliation or something… we should get prepared…”

“Umm, about that, when the zombies killed the last of the aliens, all the things that were alien, like the aliens themselves, their guns, all the objects in this den, everything except this building perhaps, just evaporated…”

“Evaporated?”

“Evaporated.”

“Can life get any shittier?”

“Well this alien hideout could have been located in a sea of shit”

“Yes, then we would have been deep into shit”

“You bet!”

Luck seemed to be against us in this adventure of ours… nothing had gone our way and we had killed some aliens who might have saved me in the studio… maybe these aliens weren’t bad, after all they did save me, I think, but with their murder on our hands, things had changed.

We managed to get out of the Alien hideout, alive, which E had seriously doubted- but we had no clue of who these aliens were and what they were doing here and to top it all, we had killed them. Maybe M & N might know more- maybe these aliens were Queenians. As you might have already guessed, this particular misadventure was the ultimate cause of the Doom’s Day… I’m sorry. But S said that, technically, the dead Zombies were to be blamed, not me. I was knocked out after all.

“Yes! Do you know about any bad animals or people who took away your friends or took away some humans or made them do funny things?”

“You find any Raakshasas like me?”

“No, I’m sorry…”

“You find female Raakshasis…”

“No…”

“O.K. You find single female Raakshasi?”

“No… I’m really sorry; but there maybe some demons who couldn’t come for some reason. We’ll find out soon, don’t worry…”

“You good human. Not like other funny humans who took my friends long ago”

“When did they take your friends?”

“After Buddha left…”

“Buddha?”

“Gautam Buddha… Buddhism…”

“Oh really, how old are you?”

“100 years?”

I smiled. “Oh you’re a little older than that. What more can you tell me about these funny humans- did you ever see them?”

“Yes”

“So whenever you remember them, you remember them as funny humans?”

“Yes and bad humans”

“O.K Rock, I am going to tie this band around your wrist. It won’t hurt you; it’ll just project the images you are remembering OK?”

“OK”

“Think about the funny humans taking away your friends”

“OK”

Soon on the screen we saw a huge hemi-spherical space ship with giant metallic teeth at the non-spherical side, probably those teeth were asteroid wipers. From the hemispherical side, a metallic path connected the main doorway of the ship to the ground. At the main doorway, a man in light grey tight shirt with dark grey tight pants with an egg shaped red hat was talking to a similarly dressed man.

“Deltamite, you think these beasts would survive?” asked the majestic looking one.

“No my King, the data rate of KO commands over the barrier isn’t good enough. So we can’t control these beasts effectively. Even the data they have sent is not as good as the ones we got from the humans. Compared to humans these beasts are too simple minded, they do not survive on their own for long,”

“Send in a few impressive humans along with these beasts and make them the commander of these beasts, ensure we get at least huge amounts of data this time…and test each beast thoroughly before you take them.”

“As you wish, my King”

The King went inside the ship & Deltamite walked down the ramp to the ground. A crew of humans wearing black followed him & setup 4 huge cylindrical tubes in a stack held together by two columns at the ends of the tube. One Raakshasa came out of nowhere and started to climb one of the columns & on reaching the top of the column he leaped towards the other column, rolled into one of the tubes, came out of the tube from the other end, and he similarly jumped into other tubes & finally he went into the spaceship.

Similarly three more Raakshasas went inside the space ships. Suddenly the view changed, as if the camera was moving towards column & climbing it. It was Rock who was climbing. But he fell down mid-way.

“I wanted to climb again, my legs didn’t move”

Obviously a command must have been given to stop him from trying again and he was left out while his friends were taken into the ship. It seemed as if all the demons went inside the ship according to their own will, but it was not so. Deltamite had given the commands to run through the test & if they passed, then to go inside the ship.

“Rock, have you seen these funny humans again?”

“No”

“Or the ship, or your friends, did you see them again?”

“No… Rock will cry now”

Chapter 11

S233

“You were right, there are some humans or aliens who at least know about these commands & are taking humans and demons to some barrier so that they can send data while they, what, die!” S said.

“What is this barrier” I said

“They looked like human to me…” E said.

“No self respecting human would wear an egg shaped hat” joked S.

“They had a space ship with them probably they are aliens or humans with advanced technology who don’t live on Earth…”

“Should we share this video with the public?” asked S.

“Yes, I think we should. Every proof, every info that we get regarding the commands; we should share it with the public after a quick review. We should project to them that we are working hard & we are progressing. It’d also give the TV reporters something to talk about, instead of just talking about my stupid act of taking over the world”

Both E & S giggled.

“There’s one more important decision that we have to make…” said S.

“S233?” I asked.

“Yes”

“What’s S233?” asked E.

“You’ll see. Follow me!”

We followed him to defense lab 7. There was a foul stench of death inside. Soon E realized that it was because of all the dead bodies. Absolutely all kinds of animals, even human, dead bodies were lying on the operation table. She was just disgusted by it all. That’s when a rat ran by her leg. She screamed & jumped into the arms of O.

“Nice job, Doc!” said S.

I was looking at E. She was just so cute, getting scared of a rat.

“Put me down!” she said.

“There are a lot of rats running around here, right Doc?” I said.

“Dead rats, to be precise!”

“What? Dead rats running around?” asked E in horror.

“Yes, the doc is controlling the dead rats just through commands!” said S.

“Are you kidding?” said E. she was still in my arms.

“Doc, make a really dead looking rat to join us here”

Soon enough a huge black rat ran towards us. It exactly stopped near me. I could clearly see it, so could E. the rat lifted its head. Both of it’s eyes were dangling from it’s sockets and a huge part of the mouth was missing. And still we could make out the grin the rat was giving us.

E started screaming. I mean isn’t she cute!

“Even dead bodies can be controlled to some extant with the commands, as you already have seen. Now I can show the effects of S233. I have covered the whole body of this rat with the gel form of the S233 and I am giving it commands…”

“No response?”

“No response.”

“For how long?”

“5 minutes”

“Why does it stop working after 5 mins?”

“The gel kind of evaporates…”

“What else have you tested this on?”

“Dead bodies of Humans”

“And?”

“It was successful for 3 minutes”

“Cool”

“Wait a minute,” E said, “You are using dead human bodies for testing?”

“Ya, they are called Zombies!”

“O, did you know about this?”

“Yes, come on, E don’t make this an issue. We can’t put S233 on live humans, till we are sure about any side effects, right, Doc?”

“I had tried S147 on live rats, they developed rashes and it took two weeks for the rashes to go away. But S233 was found to be safe on a host of animals. I tested on the Zombies, there was no reaction. They slept like babies during all the commands. And now I need permission to test on live humans”

“Are you testing the gel or pill?”

“The pill, we want to test if repeated intake of S233 is safe, so that we can be free for more than 3 minutes”

“You sure it’s safe?”

“I think so, yes.”

I looked at S, he nodded and then I looked at E.

“Don’t make any monsters in your lab, Doc” said E, as she went out of the lab.

I turned back to S, “So Zombies huh?”

“I know!” he shouted, “it’s Super Sweet, I say!”

“High Five!”

“Great job, Doc!”

“And once you find it’s effective, can you start mass producing this? And work to increase the effective time from 3 minutes to more than 3 minutes, like to eternity?”

“I know, O and I need one more permission”

“Yes?”

“We want some freedom to kill animals, for testing. You have to change the beam information at least here for at least one person”

“Why do you want to kill the animals?”

“Well we’ll be testing commands like killing other rats, or potential fatal actions, and see the effect on the rats that have received such commands, and what the rat about to be killed will do, in the absence of any defense commands and other related scenarios”

“If you feel that such scenarios need to be tested, then go ahead, Doc, I trust you. I will change the beam info for you for this lab region only.”

“Hey Doc,” asked S, “How long do you think, you will take to develop a new pill that has more effective time than 3 minutes”

“It’d be tough, S, as numbing the 6th sense in our body temporarily is one thing, and killing it altogether is another. Let’s hope for the better…”

Chapter 12

M and N

Things were finally moving along well. I had solid proof of misuse of the commands, thanks to Rock and S233 seemed effective on live humans even for long durations. I always carried a big bottle of S233 all the time.

But still I had not released S233 to public. I had a gut feeling that I needed more than S233 to say for sure that we’re free. And what about that King and Deltamite? What will they do? What is this barrier, for which they seem to have gone to extra-ordinary lengths?

While I was thinking about these late in the night and getting no sleep at all, I might add, I first met M & N in my bedroom.

Both are aliens. N is easy to depict. As I have already stressed that there are going to be a lot aliens and what nots, so I won’t be describing these guys in words, I’m no writer, I’ve no artistic tendencies for God sake! I’m a dictator and so here is N’s picture. This picture was taken by E the next day.

So as you can see N has a lot of tentacles with eyes at the end and he has wheels and he has feet, with which he can walk when doesn’t want to wheel along.

Now, M. he’s very different from all of us. I mean you really need to imagine him, as no full portrait of M can fully explain what he is. He basically looks like a cloud. His senses are very primitive, in that, he has only the 6th sense. He cannot talk either, or see, or hear, or feel or taste or smell. And yet he’s very powerful because he has a huge neural network on his huge cloud-like body. He has a distributed brain, i.e., he has no central main brain. You can cut him and cut him, he won’t die, he won’t feel any pain, and he’ll just rejoin again, be the same again, with all his memories and existential being being intact. He’s probably 200 million years old. But he himself doesn’t know how old he is.

You might be wondering why I am being such a pain and not divulging how I met M & N, what we initially talked about, what all secrets they revealed to me, and all other stuff that basically happened and I had promised to reveal, in so many interviews. But sorry dear reader, the war is still going on, even if you are not fully aware of it and I do not want to divulge top secret info just yet, and in just a mere 100Rs book for your entertainment. Be content with what you are getting and enjoy the rest of the ride. To be fair, you are going to find a lot of secrets of this Universe being revealed like when the individual colors of light are revealed when we pass it through the prism. Also please understand this that while I’m writing this, I’m not rewriting, or polishing or reading again what I have written or anything. I’m not taking anybody’s opinion as to how this narrative is turning out. I am the dictator of the world after all, I know you’ll like it, you guys kind of gotten used to liking things which I say are likeable, right? And I’m writing this in my spare time during this stupid battle. I’ll tell you about this battle and war later on, I promise. So I’m skipping some details here and there because I want to focus on the story, and finish at least the part till I reach the barrier, woow, no more teasers for you, just read on, without grumbling about my cocky style, OK?

Now where was I? M& N, right. Good thing these chapters have titles too.

N was basically a translator for M. N himself had quite a few unique features in his body and his body always reminded me of a sophisticated battle tank. He seemed like he was designed with the intent of putting him in a battle field and keeping him alive there for as long as possible. So it was clear, after many discussions with M & N, that N’s race of Turlans, were designed by the race of King and Deltamite.

How N met M and how they became friends is a story of unbelievable hand of fate and the story is painfully long. So I’ll tell the story some other time.

What I did after I met M & N, is what the rest of the story all about.

E came early in the morning to wake me up. I woke up alright, from her screams of terror when she saw N. N had told that he was quite popular among girls and mols (their species had three sexes: man, woman, mol) back in his home planet of Turla. The girls and mols, when they saw N, used to scream like me when I first saw Comtran-123 in dad’s lab. Looked like the girls of this Planet would make him feel right at home.

“They’re here to help” I said to her when things became normal.

“How?”

“Well they seem to a know a lot about the universe and the Queen”

“Who’s the Queen?”

“Oh she’s like me, and she’s like the dictator of the whole universe”

“The Universe?”

“The Universe.”

“And she isn’t God?”

“She has a dad.”

“Oh!”

“The Queenians, or the men of Queen’s race (M is not quite sure if Queen and Queenians are of same species), designed completely the planet Turla, and the people of Turla, the Turlans, for the sake of one thing-”

“To cross the barrier and survive?”

“Yes.”

“And, did they survive?”

“No. Not that M and N know of.”

“At least did the, umm, Queenians get the data they wanted?”

“From what I hear, over 600 times the barrier has been successfully breached and the data they got doesn’t add up.”

“It doesn’t?”

“It doesn’t”

“What do we know about the data that doesn’t add up. Do we have it?”

“Nothing and no”

“Oh”

“We can steal the data, as M suggests”

“M the cloud of weird gas?”

“Yes”

“What’s the use?”

“No use. Just that we are curious”

“We?”

“Me, M & N”

“Oh”

“Or we could go ahead and commit suicide by waging a war against Queenians”

“That bad? No hope to wipe them out of the Universe, not even a slightest chance?”

“No, unless we find Superman, among the freaks”

“Oh”

“We can be free, though”

“How?”

“N accidentally freed himself.”

“Did he now?”

“Yes. He accidentally shot himself with a LASER and he burnt the part of the brain that decodes KO commands from skin. But he has to do some experiments to be sure to safely do the same thing for us.”

“KO commands?”

“Kimg’s Orders – Commands that I have used so far to be the dictator of this beautiful planet for so long”

“So what next? What will you do?”

“Give up being a dictator.”

“What? You have been doing such a great job, there’s real peace out there you know except the fear of unknown…”

“The fear of the unknown is what is forcing me to quit…”

“Why exactly?”

“Apparently the KO commands are their copyrighted IP. They don’t like non-Queenians using it. If they found out that I have been using the KO commands, they may wipe out our whole planet, because we are aware of the commands and how to manipulate them. We even got S233… if the word gets out in the universe, Queenians will first strike the source of S233”

“You are right, we have S233, why can’t we use it against them? Why can’t we give it to people of other planets who need it?”

“Because even if we are free, we have no chance of winning. Even if the whole universe stood united, even the Queenians, if they joined us, against their own Queen, we’d lose. The Queen has unimaginable powers. She’s really old according to M, over here, and M is at least 200 million years old. The Queen has Godlike powers.”

“You giant whalehole!” she said struggling; “I can’t even punch you or slap you on your arm! You really have crossed all limits!”

“Easy E!”

“Easy? Easy?!” she yelled, “You are the one who should take it easy! Do you think controlling everybody will bring back your father? If you could control everybody on the planet why not control your father till he comes to you?”

“Because, even if I am sending the command to my father’s unique ID, it’s not reaching him.” I said with slight disappointment, “either he has figured out a way to break free from following the commands or he’s not there in planet or he’s, he’s dead”

I never cry, but being with E & talking about my dad, the combination almost always chokes me!

“Your father could break free from following the commands?”

“I don’t know, it’s possible”

“Do you know how to break free?”

“No, that’s what worries me. With these commands anybody can take over the world so easily. So if I educate the whole world & put pressure on them to find ways to break free then we can truly be free. My tyranny will result into true freedom!”

“What,” she was startled, “How much have you thought about this whole thing?”

“A year and a half…”

“And you never told me!”

“Because you wouldn’t understand & I’m sure you would have convinced me to not do what I have done! I’m scared of your power over me, and I wanted to do this, really really badly.”

“You know this will not end well?”

“I know. I’m prepared to pay the price…”

“You know I want to slap you? Right?” she was trying to control her anger & tears.

“I know”

I kissed her. And she kissed me back. I was so afraid, that she wouldn’t kiss me back, that I kissed her intensely as if I was kissing her for the last time. I never want to kiss her for the last time, it’s the scariest thought.

“Promise me you won’t die!”

“What?” I was surprised, “I can’t promise that, I can’t predict the future… I will die one day”

Before I could finish the sentence she kissed me again. And we kissed for a long time and I rubbed her leg a little.

“You know I want to kick you right?”

I smiled.

“So what’s the plan? You’ll become Gabbar, the greatest villain of all time, for the public, is it?”

I smiled again. “Yes”

“You’ll be hurting the religious sentiments of a wide spectrum of people, you know” she said, “I know this because you’ve hurt mine. And people have really strong faith; they will not tolerate a man who plays God. You will be questioning their very foundation; you will question their faith, their most precious feeling. Faith is what makes us beautiful, so wonderful & faith is what makes us human, faith defines us- it is who we are…”

“It’s what we Do that defines us & not faith. You can change your faith but can’t change what you’ve done or probably will do”, I said, and we were getting serious, we never chatted like this before, “I know I’d be hurting a lot of people- religious people , politicians, terrorists, anarchists, moralists, non-moralists, I mean I’ll be hurting everybody, including me. But this is something I must do for a better tomorrow for the whole world…”

“Maybe you have accidentally found the language of God…”

“The language of God… ” I said, impressed, “I never really thought about it in that way. You mean to say that this could be the language God uses to command people with?”

“Maybe”

“I don’t know, I don’t think God would use a language that could be easily used by machines & control us to the astounding level of precision. I mean, I could control a fly, command it to sit in the eye of a man & command the man not to blink, at all, even if the fly is in his eye, I mean why would God need this much precision of control?”

“You put a fly into S’ eye?” she said in a surprised tone.

“Ya, both of them.” I laughed, “He kept bathing for hours after that!”

“S and took bath, can’t picture that!” she smiled, “Ew! I don’t want to picture that!”

I was glad we were laughing. I kissed her again, I just wanted to hold her & be like that for ever… I could use the commands to make it happen…

“Do not be evil!” she said

“What? What?”

“You were thinking of using those devil’s commands on me weren’t you?” she accused with a glint of sparkle in her eyes.

“How did you know that!” I was startled, “I mean, no, I was not thinking of using the command on you, or any, huh, hot girl like that supermodel Vedthara, I was not gonna use those commands… ”

“You know that I want to hit you with my knee right in the crown jewels?”

“I know…”

Thank god for the commands!

“How do you know that I haven’t already used the commands on you?”

“Baby you don’t need the commands for me, I’m already your slave”

“Oooh!”

We kissed again. Man, I should have told her about this long ago, we could have kissed like this all the time & I was worried that she’d leave me… I kissed her even harder.

“I have to go now, but before I go,” she said, “Promise me, you will not tell publicly about your personal views? Like no talking about God, no scientific proofs that God is not there, any such stupid science mumbo jumbo…”

“What? Come on! There’s no God, there’s proof all around”

“You know I want…”

“To hit me in the jewels, I know.”

“So promise me, no personal opinions. You will not force upon people your style of living or choices, O.K? Promise?”

“Aww, but I already kind of forced them to be vegetarian when I said that they can’t kill animals”

“Let that be an exception, eating poor little animals, those monsters!”

“You know you’re a hypocrite, right?”

“Totally,” she winked, “and I love it!”

“What about mushrooms, insects, fungus etc. should I allow them to eat those?”

“Eww! That’s disgusting! Nobody should eat that!”

“O.K. then, is there any other thing you want me to force people to do?”

“I don’t like the boys who whistle at me when I go to the bus stop, can you do something about that, Mr. Evil Dictator?”

“Alright, people, you heard him, we call him, O, like his dad used to call him”

“People who like me call me, O”

“Well shall I call you Mr. Dictator”

I smiled, she was a bit more sarcastic than she usually is towards her regular guests. Guess I deserved it. “You can call me anything if you don’t like me”

“Mr. Asshole of the millennium, maybe” she said, “Oops I thought I couldn’t call you that to your face, but apparently I can! I’m sorry Mr. Dictator”

“Hey don’t worry; you can call me an asshole, if you like that better”

“Actually I do, Asshole” she smiled.

“Are you aware of the deep impact of your stupid actions on the whole world?”

“Maybe not, enlighten me…”

“Well people are scared; they’re scared of your powers. They have seen what you could do & you may not have shown all that you are capable of, which I’m betting is the case & the unknown scares them. It scares me too. They can’t trust anybody; they think anybody could be your spy. They can’t be the happy merry selves they used to be just two days ago, and all because you want to find your dad? Tell me now, what is your motive for all this?”

“Wow, you’re good lady.” I said with a smile, “Finding my dad is one of my reasons, yes. It’s not because he’s my dad & I love him. I am looking for him because he’s the one who did all the research on the commands that I am using to control the world. He may know more about the origins & purpose of these commands”

“So you want to find him because you want to become more powerful than you already are?”

“No, I want to know who designed these commands & why. This may help us to break free from these commands”

“So you want to find a way to break free from these commands? Is it even possible? & if yes, why would you even want to explore these ways. Wouldn’t they help to topple your dictatorship?”

“Yes, I want to find ways as to how we can break free from these commands because even I, can be controlled by these commands. I am a human being after all, the same like you”

“I doubt that, sorry,” she interrupted me, “Please continue…”

“As I said, absolutely anybody from this planet can be controlled by any being with these commands. This presents a direct risk to the safety of the whole planet, hey if a 18 year old can control a planet, think of what a really evil person can do with these commands… these commands are the shackle for our freedoms, we must find ways to break free from these invisible shackles”

“Funny that you keep mentioning that if an evil person were to control the world… are you implying that you are not evil? Doesn’t making everybody your puppet, make you an evil asshole?”

“You are right”

“I am?”

“Yes, you are. It does make me an evil asshole. But the degree to which you are a puppet does matter. Even without me, before you were a puppet, to some degree, to the society, you played by the rules the society set, and when society was not watching you did as you pleased & broke any laws that you wished to. But now under my dictatorship, you can’t break any laws. I have committed a crime, but not all crimes have same penalty, so judge me fairly. If a really evil person takes over these commands, he can wipeout an entire culture or a race or even all women or homosexuals or heterosexuals depending upon what he’s biased about & to what degree he hates. Absolutely anybody can become an evil monster with the powers that I possess, so it’s natural that the people are scared. That is why I’m having this interview…”

“Tell me more…”

“You can take my own dad’s story. He was definitely controlled by these very commands into murdering my sister & attempted to murder me. My dad is a gentle soul. He loved everybody; he wouldn’t kill a mentally disturbed person…”

“Were you mentally disturbed when he attempted to murder you?”

“No!” I said, irritated at her lack of home work, “My sister was, she was at a mental health institute when my dad killed her. He was being controlled, I’m sure of it”

“Do you have any proof for this?”

“No, it’s my hunch.”

“So do you take all your decisions based on hunches? Are you going to control us all, based on hunches?”

“Madam, I think you are over-reacting…”

“Over-reacting?” she riled up, “It’s you, who have over-reacted to your tiny little problems & hunches. We have been living quite free, all these millions of years, until you thought that there’s a threat. God made us. Who knows His design, you may have just hit the right button on your lab & found the key, maybe it was a fluke & you think you are being controlled by what- government? Aliens? Dinosaurs? & your dad was controlled to kill a mentally ill person? Are you for real? Do not play with lives of people! Do not play with me or my kids…”

“Woow! I mean what should I say, that I’m sorry?”

“You’re sorry. Like all the men out there, you think you can do whatever you want & say you’re sorry & women will forgive like the time-honored tradition of forgiving in our culture. This time, I’m not going to forgive you. I’m going to join those protestors outside. I really hate you, O. You’re the same age as my oldest son, he’s just as stupid as you are, he’s even passionate like you- he wants to save the world! But I have news for you- the world doesn’t need saving. It was perfectly safe till you opened this can of worms! You know what’s going to happen? You look like a nice decent kid, maybe as you say, let’s assume that you do have a good heart and your intentions are noble, but what next? What if you fail somehow or die, this technology of yours falls into the wrong hands & they control everybody, including you or your dead body… what then, huh?”

“Like all the great scientists who made great discoveries which resulted in the making of devastating weapons that kill people mercilessly- what do you think about how they felt? They died with greatest regret. No man should die thinking about the number of people who died or half-died, the misery they caused among their loved ones etc etc, because of his one stroke of technical genius & horrendous moral stupidity! Men with ripe ages have made those mistakes. For glory or for patriotism, they ignored their moral obligation towards humanity. They were stupid like you. And once you have shown the world your shiny new toy, everybody would want it, they all wonder how they lived all these years without it, they want to play with it & it no longer remains a toy. Any weapon can be used as a means of protection, as defense or to destroy, for offense, but the end result, no matter how great the cause was, the effect always, is misery, even for the ones who used the weapons.”

She made my heart bleed. Dear reader, please understand that I am no crybaby. But the way she rolled over me, she made me realize my foolish mistake. Was it a mistake?

“Looks like you have already done the worst damage,” she continued, “Don’t make it even worse, my boy. Just think of this, I’ll try to speak in your own language- what if, as you say, these commands were designed by some government or aliens, what do you think they’ll do? Wouldn’t they retaliate? Are you prepared to go to war with them? Maybe you thought when you brought the whole world under one banner- yours, that there will be no fighting, no war, because there are no two sides, because all the people are on one side- yours, but what if your unification of the whole world leads to a bigger war, which we’re not prepared for…”

I didn’t know what to say to her. I just kept trying to control my tears, but it was getting tougher & tougher, after every word she spoke. Here was a true humanitarian who’d have rejected great power for greater good. Did I not think about this enough? Did I not know about the risks, apart from the obvious personal risks? I had to answer her; I had to answer to the world…

“I agree I have been foolish, maybe even egotistic and self-righteous. I was seeing the world with narrow eyes. But even after hearing your thoughts, profound and meaningful as they are, I probably would have done the same thing, as I have already done. These commands are not meant for our safety, they are designed to make us slaves. And I want to be free. I want to be free, even if it means dying in the process. But along with me, I have involved everyone’s life, and maybe I have brought everybody’s life in great danger, which I accept I am guilty of…”

“But if I have learnt anything from our freedom struggles, from Gandhi, from Mandela, from Martin Luther King Jr, is that it’s worth our lives to fight for tomorrow. If I don’t fight, I stand no chance of winning, unless fate has a hand in it. And if you know fate as I do, then you’d agree, that fate is a bitch, excuse me for my French. I am gonna fight for me, for my loved ones back home, and I am gonna fight for you lady, and your kids and for everybody else in this world. I am gonna fight, and I’m gonna win, because I’m the man!”

I didn’t know what people were thinking at that minute, maybe they thought I was a stupid naïve boy or maybe they thought I was a man true to my words, but when I saw in the eyes of the TV reporter, I knew I had just got myself a new fan. She hugged me and said, “Let’s just hope the worst doesn’t happen and if it does, then your best efforts are good enough, O. I’m gonna call you O, O.K?”

I smiled and said “Yes ma’m & would you like to be one of my advisors”

“Only if you call me Pavithra”

“It’s a deal, Pavithra”

“That’s it. We’re off air now!”

“That was a great interview, Pavithra. Thanks for believing in me…”

“I don’t believe in you!” she said, “I’m sure you are going to screw it up…”

“But you said…”

“That was during the show! Everybody’s scared of you; I just tried to console them, if they sympathize with you, maybe understand you a little, they’ll not be worried all the time! Look kid, I know that you were just trying to be a macho man, I don’t see a Hitler in you, I really don’t, but you are not competent and you are stupid. You don’t have enough skills required to rule the whole world. Actually nobody has the skills to rule the world.”

“But, I’m confident …”

“You can’t kid. Start believing that! Sooner you are able to do that, the better it is for you. And don’t worry about us- the world has seen worse people than you in power and we have survived them all. And we’ll survive you and your stupidity too. So don’t worry about us. You just have fun, play with your video games, fly a jet fighter, maybe even in a rocket, go to beaches & parties & meet some girls, basically have fun while it lasts… because it’ll all end one day and soon, and you are gonna pay for your stupidity. Do me a favor, entertain us while you are in power, and don’t kill yourself when you aren’t”

Chapter 9

Defense lab 12

“Was it staged?” E asked.

“What? No!” I said.

“It was good, it was as if it was scripted to perfection. People are beginning to hate you less…”

“Well, that’s the only good thing that came from the interview…”

“What are you talking about? The interview was a hit!”

“Well it was not a hit with my ego; she called me stupid at least 5 times after the interview. She doesn’t believe that I will be able to protect the world…”

“What, protect the world from what exactly?”

“I don’t know, aliens, maybe. Those commands are not good for us. I can feel it; the intent of the commands is not for the good of mankind O.K”

“Or it may be God’s design…”

“Come on, E, don’t get me started on that!”

“It’s not just me. There are billions of people protesting, telling you that you are playing God. And you have no right to do what you are doing…””

“E, I can’t have this talk now, O.K”

“You can’t keep running from your responsibilities, O”

“Alright, alright, tell me what would you do if you were in my shoes?”

“Huh, umm, let’s see… I’d make world a better place, work for true peace…”

“And how exactly are you going to do that?”

“Well, I will… I will… umm, that won’t do, I will… I will…”

“When you find out how, tell me, alright. Look E, I could have controlled the whole world anonymously and I could have found my dad, maybe. I went public because I want everybody to help themselves to find ways to break free from these commands. When billions of smart people focus their energies to do one thing, however impossible it may initially seem, I feel that we can do it. Hey if it is God’s design and we broke free from the commands, that still wouldn’t do much harm, because, hey, He’s God, He’ll understand, we are His children and that we are stupid, he can do something, & make it right again. But if I’m right, and if the some aliens have designed these commands, and if we break free from these commands, then it would give us a fair shot at a fight and if we don’t break free, then we are as good as slaves for these aliens and we won’t be able to do anything, I mean, anything at all. This exact message is being given to the billions of people right now by S. He’s good at such things. He’s organizing all kinds of groups to free us, and make us be prepared for anything that may come. I am the dictator of the whole world, I have all the resources, I have the power and I have the will- I will win, no matter what lies ahead, and we will be free.”

“If what you say is true, then how are we going to prepare huh? We have no clue what the aliens are capable of, who they are or what. We have zero information about that! How can we win this war?”

“That is what S is working on. Till then we can roam freely knowing in our hearts that nobody would steal from us, we’ll not get mugged, we’ll not get killed, our daughter’s won’t get kidnapped or raped, you know. I am controlling people, forcing them to find a way for me to be not able to control them. We’ll use these very commands to find a way to break free from them…”

“You are serious,” she said getting impressed, “Earlier what you were telling me was to go and fight in pitch dark, and now you are telling me that you are getting lights soon. That’s what I wanted to hear.”

I smiled. I was making progress with her at least.

My mobile started to ring. It was S.

“Can you come to defense lab 12, straight away? We have got a talking Rhino!!” he said.

“On my way…”

Defense lab 12 was supposed to hold the freaks of nature. I mean, they were not humans, but sentient beings, anomalies of evolution so to speak During initial testing of IDing everybody on planet, I had found a few IDs with unknown DNAs. For these beings I had sent a separate transmission, telling them to join us at defense lab 12, if they could and if not we’ll get in touch with them, say some sea animals may not make it here and some land animals who do not want to risk being seen and so on and so forth.

I was hoping that these sentients could help us give info about the commands.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” S was jumping around, ”O you have got to see this- we have got a talking Rhino!”

We met the rhino, he didn’t say much except that he hates fire. S called me all the way to defense lab 12 to meet the rhino who says just, “I hate fire!”

“S!!! He’s useless!” I screamed.

“But he’s a talking rhino! And he’s so cute, I mean look at his nose! We can make him act in movies! He’s a star!”

“Of course. Rock, his name is Rock, can’t even kill an animal, let alone humans, and that’s why he’s really hungry. He’s a pure non-vegetarian. I felt sorry for he poor fellow. But it’s awesome to touch his belly, it sounds like a huge cave!”

We went to Rock’s designated resting area, only, he was not resting. He was 10 feet tall, had hair all over his body, like a huge black bear and he had horns, like a bull and had really well formed canine teeth. And he was hungry. He did not look scary at all. Hey you can look at the picture S took.

“Rock hungry, Rock hungry!” Rock kept shouting.

“Let’s just feed him something. We should have some dead animals right? For situations like this? And once he’s had his fill we’ll talk with him…”

I was nervous. Many high profile people were here. Even the media was here, telecasting LIVE to billions of people. Can’t they understand how stupidly we were wasting so much for just a “dinner” People never really get that message, they don’t think about it. They were busy seeing who all came & who didn’t & guessing who didn’t get invited and all such gossip. If you tell them this fact, they’d nod their heads & agree. They even sympathize. But I know better, that we all are hypocrites. We all say how much food, how much money was wasted at a party and blame the hosts & guests about their reckless irresponsibility, but given a chance we’d love to crash that party & have “good” time.

It was time for me to be a hypocrite myself and have some fun.

I saw some people around Mr. Prime Minister asking him to join in the “”Party Game” they were playing.

“I know a game, Mr. Prime Minister, which you might find amusing” I said joining the crowd.

E was not happy & so were the other adults. But Mr. Prime Minister humored me & said, “Tell me all about it, my boy!”

“Well take this coin & toss it up,” I said slowly, “and I’ll guess the outcome of the toss, before the coin hits the ground.”

He smiled, or tried to smile, I couldn’t clearly make out his expression. Not the greatest of the party games, now, was it? Still he was the Prime Minister & he had to be nice to people while he was still in power, if he wanted to be in power in future as well. So he said, “Alright, let’s do this & get it over with!” and tossed the coin.

“Heads!” I said.

Everybody’s eyes were on the coin flipping through the air & I was beaming wildly with a victory sign towards the camera. Oh I looked stupid. The first time I came on T.V. & I looked like a complete idiot.

The coin hit the ground & it was Heads.

“You got lucky!” people shouted.

“One more time!” E said. At least she found the game interesting. I wasn’t sure if she knew that I was going to be right, again, or she thought I’ll get it wrong & lose face, look like an idiot, which I already had done successfully, LIVE, in front of a billion people.

The TV reporters checked me if I was wearing any kind of device or anything. They couldn’t find anything. It was a clean show.

They wanted me to fail, and when I didn’t, they wanted, even more, for me to fail, and yet, I didn’t. This stretching of wanting more, and more, became so intense, so breath taking & awe inspiring that it hit the limit of their desires for me to fail, and still, I didn’t fail. It was as if, each of my victory was their defeat.

Soon I found the feeling that they started wanting me to win and win and win. And each of my victory was theirs. My glory was theirs.

I had to take it to the next level.

“Maybe there is some trick, Ladies & gentlemen,” I started, “So I won’t guess the outcome of the next toss, alright? Mr. Prime Minster will guess the outcome & you- Mr. Reputable TV reporter, you toss the coin.”

The reporter took a coin from his purse, & smiled accusingly at me. Everybody laughed, they were enjoying themselves. World’s greatest game was being played after all. I gave a “You, Oh You Smarty pants!” pointed finger gesture towards the reporter & a go ahead nod & smiled.

The reporter tossed the coin. Mr Prime Minister said “Tails!” And sure enough it was tails.

The reporter tossed the coin again. Mr Prime Minister said “Heads!” And sure enough it was heads.

This went on happening. Mr. Prime Minister had guessed 43 times correctly & ZERO times wrongly. People were going mad with disbelief and awe.

Mr. Prime Minster was heard shouting, “I love this game!”

As is my motto- take it to the next level, I proceeded to take it to the next level.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” I said, pretending I was Amithabh Bachchan, “Are you having fun?”

“Yes!”

“You want more?”

“Yes!”

“Music,” I shouted & the music from “Sexy thing” started playing and people started to dance & laugh like they never did before. All of them dancing like they were the clones of Michael Jackson. People were shouting at top of their voices.

“I can Moonwalk!” shouted somebody, “I always wanted to do that but never could!”

Everybody were having a great time, I knew that the whole world was watching me, E was watching, probably even Dad was watching me. I had to say something smart & memorable.

And that my dear reader is the greatest feeling a guy can feel, legally, before he turns 18! I was feeling like James Bond saving the damsel in distress & see the villain bite the dust while I bite into the damsel’s neck!

E punched me in the stomach as she was Moonwalking. And I suffered excruciating pain while she took hold of my soft left ear & took me to a corner in a secluded room. She was still Moonwalking.

“What did you do?” she asked & I knew that she meant business, even though she was Moonwalking. So strictly no jokes, especially no PJs (poor jokes) in my reply was expected.

“Ï just showed them who the man was” I smiled, trying to charm her.

It failed. She punched me again. Still moonwalking.

“Again, what did you do?”

“Am I being interrogated here?”

She punched me again. Still moonwalking.

“You want the truth?”

She nodded.

“I’m gonna find my dad…”

“By making people moonwalk?” she said in disbelief.

“Ya, if that’s what it takes!”

I saw rainy clouds well up in her eyes.

“Why, why do you keep doing this?” she managed to say between her sobs, “I know you are smart and you can play with your father’s toys in the lab, but using them, like this, on people? When did you become this?”

“Hey, don’t cry!” I said trying to console her, “There’s a lot I wanna say to you, but you’d never understand…”

“You can say anything to me…”

“No, I can’t say anything to you, not this, no” I found myself crying too, “If I said those things to you, I know for sure, you wouldn’t understand and you may never talk to me again… Even after I knew that you’d never talk to me again, should I have told you?”

“I love you, O” she was hysterical, “I would always love you & always be there for you, no matter what. Don’t hold back on me, please, tell me, whatever it is…”

This was the first time she told me that she loved me. I was not gonna ruin this night with some petty facts & being honest. It was not a pretty sight to see the girl you love cry, much less while she’s moonwalking at the same time…

“I’ll tell you everything tomorrow,” I said, “I promise, come on let’s have some fun. You want to go somewhere else?”

She nodded.

Chapter 5

Kidnapped

“You sure you’ll be safe?” said S. If you are curious- S, his name is Sajjan, meaning a gentleman. But he was no gentleman. He preferred being called Saajan, especially by girls. Saajan means Sweetheart. Life, as usual, was not without some irony even for him. S was nobody’s Saajan. Girls pretty much loathed him, and he pretty much loved them. The more a girl despised him, the more he went after her, thinking her hate is, in fact, love for him. Yes, he’s a moron.

“Ya, you sure wanna sleepover here?” I said, “It could be dangerous for you, though not for me…”

“Yeah, sure,” he winked, “I might become popular tomorrow, and the girls love popular guys”

“Please tell me you are doing this for me & not for the girls!”

“For you too, buddy, for you too. Hey I have updated VIRUS last night!”

“Yeah?” VIRUS is OS-cum-program software that S had written. It can run on any OS due to its dynamic auto-coding and talk with any device. Even if there is no OS to run the VIRUS, it automatically downloads itself on any digital hardware and talk to the device. I mean, this is one vicious software. It can make multiple copies of itself, talk with its other copies, take decisions, crash the device, pump out data, absolutely anything. But the good thing is, it understands S & my needs, and act independently. It’s also fully capable AI. I mean this VIRUS is everything.

“Here, I’ll load it into your watch, keep talking to her…” he said & VIRUS downloaded her latest version on my super watch.

We couldn’t sleep even after two hours. I was just thinking about what all I’ll be doing with this new power when I heard a loud thud near the window. But before I could check it out, I was knocked out.

When I woke up, I found out that I wasn’t in my home anymore and I saw the man I was looking for, for the past three months- Angel Eyes. I didn’t know why he was called so, but he had some pretty freaky eyes.

“Angel eyes!” I said slowly, rubbing my head.

“O, my dear boy,” he said, “looks like you hit the jackpot!”

“Yes I did,” I said, “And you my angel, you are going to hit a wall!”

As soon as I finished the sentence, Angel Eyes was gracious enough to run, fast, towards the wall & hit it. His nose started to bleed. It was a sweet sight.

“You did hit the wall!” said S. Good old S with his obvious comments. I laughed, with a hint of evil. I never realized that I had an evil laugh! I had been practicing in front of a mirror all these days and couldn’t laugh in a convincingly evil way.

S gave a big appreciative thumbs up to me and said “Nice!”

As expected, a dozen black commandos came running with guns pointed towards us.

“O, you got it covered?” said S, “All of them?”

“Yes” I said, “Boys drop your weapons & be kind enough to show us your pink undies with flowers on them!”

Angel Eyes stared at me.

The commandos dropped the weapons & dropped their black pants.

“What a gloriously funny sight, O” said S, “I knew you were gonna make them drop their weapons, but the Pink Undies? Man! They really are wearing pink undies with cute little flowers! This is awesome!”

“You always get right to the business!” I said getting irritated, “Here I was, thinking we could have some fun before the business we were so destined to conduct”

“I don’t understand,” said Angel Eyes, “You want to join our club?”

“Don’t make me laugh, you fool” I said, getting even more irritated, “All I want from you is, just one answer to one question: Where’s my dad?”

“What?” he said, “You think I know where your dad is?”

“I don’t think, Angel Eyes, I know that you know!”

“You’re mistaken…”

I just couldn’t wait anymore; I punched him in the stomach.

“Hey, there’s no need for punching me,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I know…”

“Like all great men,” he began, “Your father was given an invitation after his path breaking all-senses-home-theatre invention. He was skeptical at first, but when we shared our discoveries with him, he was dumbstruck. He couldn’t believe it. I mean, for all rational men, for men of science, it’s tough to believe that God created us & there’s a lot of fabrication that has been done by Him to throw us off course. He has to choose the best, and only the best will realize the truth and be ready for His command & He handpicks the best for His job”

“It’s not God” I said with all seriousness.

“Your dad seemed to reach the same conclusion & he tried to convince us too. When he failed to convince us, he began his propaganda of Evil God theory, I mean, he really went mad as was evident from his Shining moment”

Dear reader, I’ll have to tell you all about my dad and his infamous Shining moment before anything can start making sense to you. But right now, I can’t! You have to bear the suspense till I know the truth myself.

“Don’t play games with me,” I yelled, “Just the way I made you slap yourself, you made him kill Priya”

I punched him again. I couldn’t control my tears. S placed his hand on my shoulder & punched Angel Eyes. Angel Eyes fell down. S was better at beating up people, my punches were rather girlish.

“I don’t know how you are making me slap myself,” Angel cried, “I didn’t know how you guessed the toss outcomes or made people dance, I wanted to know about it & so I wanted to give you an invitation to the club who talk with God!”

“You lying Cockroach!”

S kicked him. We were getting violent, much more than I had planned.

“If you are not going to tell me,” I said wiping the sweat on my forehead, “I’m gonna make you tell me everything…”

Chapter 6

The Dictator

“Angel Eyes doesn’t know cow dung!” I said, “For a man who’s the president of the most powerful club in the world, he really knows nothing…”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find your dad” S said, “We have the power now”

He was right. We did have the power. Nobody from this great planet Earth, is as powerful as me, not in the past, present & hopefully not even in the future. You see Angel Eyes’club has a few toys like big space rockets & some satellites orbiting around the earth. I just needed three special satellites, really, to become the most powerful man.

All right, I’ll tell you the main secret behind my power. This power enabled me to be the first & so far, the only Dictator of the world. Pretty great thing to be the first. I mean, even if I was a dictator, nobody else had taken control of the whole planet, like I had done, not Alexander, not Genghis Khan, not even the British Empire can boast like what I had accomplished, and without bloodshed I might add.

I mean you have paid good money to know how I had conquered the whole world, and how in the world did I make you moonwalk on 18th November.

Here goes: you see, we have 5 senses that we know of. Right? Wrong! There’s one more sense, Skin. Ya ya, hold your horses. Skin is actually a dual sensing thing. When I say skin, I mean any part of your body that is exposed to air, even your eyes, hair, anything on your body which you can see with eyes, has the 6th sense.

We never knew about our 6th sense because it was meant to be kept as a secret & our normal survival did not depend on using of the 6th sense, so we never used it, even though it was always active & fully functional.

What is its function?

Good question.

Well, basically our skin can detect a special frequency, decode the data in that frequency into neural signals & send that data to a part of the brain which can understand these signals and execute them to the best of its capacity.

Let’s say you got a command to eat a peanut. & let’s say, you do not want to eat the peanut. I mean, you really do not want to eat the peanut because you are allergic to it & you may, even, die if you eat even a single peanut. Now when you get this command to eat that peanut, the part of your brain which decodes the information to eat the peanut will give the commands to the part of the brain which does all your motor control, which control your hands, legs etc, it tells it to eat the peanut. So your hand proceeds to pick up the peanut & eat it. All this while your conscience brain which knows that eating a peanut will kill you, sends the command to stop eating. But the priority of the command from the part of your brain which got the command from skin is very high. So this skin command trumps the command from your conscience brain & the command from the conscience brain is ignored, and you eat the peanut. And die.

Oh this was just a scenario, an example, don’t get scared, you won’t die. I won’t let you die till you finish reading my books! I’m O after all!

Even animals have the 6th sense. But humans have the most advanced form of the 6th sense, and it is not because of evolution, believe me.

I know this is hard to digest, so just relax, take your time before continuing to read.

I’ll just start telling the part of the story where I go public and tell the whole world that they’re my slaves, O.K? I mean you heard this speech LIVE right?

The following speech was heard by every human on earth at the time, either through T.V., Radio, Movie theatres, Video sharing portals on internet, other forms of internet, mail, snail mail, loudspeakers, absolutely any form of communication. I think we even sent Morse code.

I was wearing a yellow –black striped T-shirt & an old jeans and I went LIVE. I looked cool because I was the man! Absolutely everybody on earth would see me or hear me or at least read about me in one way or the other.

“Hello people,” I said smiling, “I’m O. I don’t like the word dictator generally, but I’m afraid that’s what I am now. I am the absolute dictator of the whole world. Yes you heard me right. I am the absolute dictator of the whole world. As is the typical behavior, I know, that you wouldn’t believe me & go in denial about this absolutely awesome fact. So to prove to you that I am the absolute dictator, I am going to give you a command: Do the Moonwalk for exactly 30 seconds & think about what I have just said. People who are disabled, just look around for people doing the moonwalk, O.K.? Ooww, almost forgot, everybody, even disabled people, have to say or try to say, “O’s the man!” O.K?”

At that time, across all time zones, all over the world, people said, “O’s the man!”

“Well 30 seconds are over now,” I continued, “Now you know that I’m the man, right? The governments will continue to work in the same way as they used to, all over the world, but there are a few extra rules for all men to follow- few things which you will not be able to do, that you were usually free to do- like killing people. Murderers, I’m sorry, you can’t kill anybody or anything, no, not even a single animal or bug. Even law enforcing agencies like police or soldiers, even you can’t kill anybody, you can’t even shoot, alright? But the police will still be there, the soldiers will be still there to maintain status quo. You can’t steal, cheat etc etc I mean all bad things that I think are bad, you can’t do them. You’ll figure out what all things you can’t do when you try to do them, anyway, so I’ll not go into the details. Also some panic driven activities like selling off stocks, migrating to a different country etc etc, you cannot do, at least not until I say it’s O.K, O.K? You cannot blackmail me, or force me to do something, or try political weapons like civil disobedience like Gandhi, you are free to protest and do demonstrations, but only after you have done your duty towards society, have finished your job for the day, only then can you protest…”

“We’ll talk more, tomorrow, O.K?” I was finishing up, “Of course you are free to discuss, say bad things about me, just about anything else which doesn’t involve hurt for others. I still haven’t figured out what all I’ll do with the power that I have now, so please you can give me any ideas or suggestions @ O@otheman.com”